Divya Manikandan is a resident of Bangalore, India, who is currently building her own poetic arsenal, painting as a form of meditation and creating short films as a form of expression. Literature is her means of escape from reality, however her reality has always been to become a surgeon.Her work has been accepted for publishing by Plum Tree Tavern, EskimoPie and Red Eft review.

​ BROKEN BARCODES

Broken barcodes everywhere,we’re swung in the frenzy of our own consumerism.We shun human trafficking, labelling actsagainst moral principlesand yet we wake up every dayselling our souls to notions of capitalism.

It’s a dog eat dog world andwe’re drowned in the playback sound ofclashing titles, and haunted opinions.Idealists and their tunnel vision,socialists and their wide frame panoramas.

It’s optimistic how we think we live ina functional utopia.It’s but a social construct that we builtto hydraulically (re)press intuition and individuality.

This life is a two way street of thought andcounterclaim, but we march down one wayand leave behind the ones that try to break the flow.

We follow those disillusioned with the pettygrievances, caught in their own web of lies

and all that’s left is to wait for our death and voices to crystallize.

IN THE TIME AFTER

You can tell that this ground has seen wars.

When your feet press against the dark crevicesyou can sense the songs of the soldiers that once bled.

When your eyes glance across the fields to theDahlias that grow around the fence, you can almostsee the trenches of darkness that once existed in thesame place.

When a distant crow flies above youthe world beneath your feet projects the shadowof large fighter planes that once rippedthrough the skies.

Listen to the walls that now border this place,you can hear the wailing of the womenand hungry children that tried to escape.

Ghosts of wronged innocents, spirits oflost patriots, and souls of entire nationsmeander hopelessly on this land.

And if perhaps you happen to meet one someday,be sure to tell them that they lost in vain-because the dusty books of history have long forgottentheir holy names.

REWIN(D)

The nights that we saw the wolvesgive birth to their cubs,the days we saw the flames make loveto the air of the earth.